More religion stuff

[amicus]

I went back to your original post, thinking there was a question in there somewhere...there wasn't.

"...I believe in the real God, creator of Heaven and Earth, Men and Women, Sex, Joy, Mirth, Happiness... who gives us sadness and punishment only as a reminder that we need to love and care for one another MORE. Whose anger and wrath stem only from how we harm one another, not how well we follow a capricious set of arbitrary, pointless rules..."

Just you stating your belief's, a rant, fine, live with it.

Amicus

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

Just you stating your belief's, a rant, fine, live with it.

Amicus

You seem to think my original post was an argument against atheists and agnostics. My original post was an argument against those who made me feel like I WAS an agnostic because I didn't believe in THEIR God. There were friends of mine on the AH who were concerned about me, and I wanted to allay their concerns and let them know that I had reached some kind of equilibrium. That I was going to be OK.

For some reason you thought this had to with you, or with me having a problem atheists and agnostics. You threw a few things out there that I felt made for interesting conversation. I have no problem with atheists or agnostics, though I find some to be logically inconsistent. Logical inconsistency can yield some wonderful and fruitful discussion. There is not a person on earth who IS logically consistent.

So chill out; I'm not trying to be confrontational in any way.

 

[cantdog]

No...I've studied Islam. The problem of it is that it gives the believers a different set of moral guidelines than what they would believe if they were not given that belief at birth...which looking at how Islam is represented by those who take it too far in contrast to those that I know who just exist in it because it's what they were taught makes me want to vomit.

I was using a simplistic view to show that the moral code instated by Islam is different than what a Christian would view. They hold different ideas, but there is something that has to be taken into perspective when dealing with that. I would have gone into deeper detail on the rites and passages that are with the Koran and all of their insane rules that you can get just by listening to a person reading from the Koran.
Cultural Advancement.
We as a western culture have advanced ourselves and rid ourselves of the ideas that are socially unacceptable that were part of the religions that are so popular now. We no longer follow the guidelines of the OT because most of them are so inane and outrageous that if somebody were to instate them, they'd be put in an asylum immediately.
As a culture, we have rid ourselves of many of the old rules, and it shows when you compare our new world viewpoints vs the old world viewpoints that the undeveloped world has followed because of their exposure to religions that claim that they are the truth...which is what every religion on the planet claims to be.

You may have read a book. I have to say, it doesn't seem that you've studied Islam.

The insane rules you speak of-- shari'ah-- were not derived from just reading the Qu'ran. Their development goes back eleven hundred years, and there are several schools of thought on the matter, just within Jama'i-Sunni Islam. Universally, that is to say, in one syllable words,each one, acknowledges other sources than just the Qur'an.

And the guidelines found in the OT were not abandoned because they were inane and outrageous. Far from it. Some people still attempt to adhere to them, again, with several schools of thought on the matter. Those schools of thought also do not limit themselves to just what you call OT. Most, but not all, of the Christians, following the exegesis laid out in Paul's letter, have concluded that the Law in the OT was set aside by the Messiah. That's not at all the same as "set aside because they were inane and outrageous."

Indeed, Western religions do not evaluate their laws or dogmas, codes, proscriptions, and whatnot by any such criterion. None of them pause a second to consider whether they might be inane, and certainly no time is pissed away wondering whether or not they might be outrageous.

I have nothing against religion as such. Show me any other pile of destructive, life-denying, death-worshiping, poisonous, intolerant, murderous, irrational bullshit. You will find me opposing that just as much.

Perhaps, though I deny it, there is no proof, as Rob says, of the non-existence of God or some gods. However, it is crystal clear that any such entity is utterly without call on my admiration.

If any conscious entity is really in charge of the way things go down, really responsible for the design and the progress of events, she is contemptible, low, abysmal, irredeemable, foul, heinous. Cruelty, beyond description or belief, hideous toying with and torture of uncounted innocents!-- No, had anyone ever in all history managed to make one coherent argument for the existence of that being, which they never once have, I would never serve it, never respect it, never let one word of praise escape me on its behalf.

We may all breathe the easier that no such sink of depravity actually exists. On the other hand we do have the deluded, cruel, grasping, ruthless, reality-denying believers and, worse, their clergy to contend with, and they are doing what they can within their human limits to be as execrable as the Deity they prate about.

But I like to keep an open mind; indeed, don't try to convince me not to keep an open mind, because I won't listen.

So, if anyone came along tomorrow with a good argument for a God or gods, I'd acknowledge it. I don't see where any of the above constitutes a position of 'faith.'

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I'm more of a Stoic. Duty and virtue are very important, the 4 chief virtues are wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance (with the greatest being justice), Nature is superior to society and guided an Intelligence far beyond our own (the Logos that presumably guided evolution and gave us our sexual instinct, too, by the way, whereas society gave us all of those restrictions). This Logos permeates all things, particularly those alive. It takes the form of the ancient Gods, too, but these are simply manifestations.

 

[ishtat]

?

Um, explain Mother Teresa for me then, friend.

There are two alternative views:-

1 She was a saintly woman who devoted her life to good works and looking after the poor. She did this through her devotion to God and through the the church. She regarded the church and the papacy as having absolute authority in all aspects of life and never questioned the churches orthodoxies.

2 She was a poorly educated Albanian peasant and profoundly ignorant outside of Catholic orthodoxy. She was reluctant to submit to authority when young but demanded unquestioning obedience within her own order with steadily increasing arrogance. The impact of her work has been grossly overstated.

Both views are deeply coloured by the Catholic church's creation of her 'celebrity'

My own opinion is that the celebrity imposed on her by the church is unhelpful and that her contribution was regressive in that she only saw the poor and women as soul fodder for the church heirarchy.

However, there are many who will disagree.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The idea of God as the Old Man in the Sky is awfully crude and primitive. It's a kindergarten idea of divinity, and I don't think anyone who's heavily into modern theology takes it very seriously.

Modern theology starts with the feeling of radical awe you get when you confront the fact of your own existence, the shock of consciousness. It's hard to say on an emotional or intuitive level that there's not something there that surpasses understanding and always will. Not in the sense of a designer or creator, but in the sense of process and and ongoing mystery, and that's the level of truth theology deals with, this intuitive, human truth.

God is feeling more than a fact, experiential not empirical. He's suprarational and doesn't have to be proven, which is why "proofs" of his existence are so ridiculous. He can be experienced any time, and only the deadest among us aren't aware of this essential mystery at the heart of life, which is a theological mystery that science can never explain. Even if they could show you the two molecules that "make" consciousness, they still haven't explained the miracle of awareness. That's where God exists.

Whether you choose to ignore him or struggle to deal with him is up to you, but seeing him as a spirit in the sky just limits him terribly and ignores what's really miraculous. This ethical stuff is so much babbling after the fact, a human attempt to interpret the radical shock of existence, and we get it wrong as often as we get it right.

 

[ishtat]

The idea of godness as our being and experience

'godness' a clumsy word perhaps but I understand it to be an experience of the mind which to me involves no sense of a being or believing at all .Godness is; it is neither identifiable nor provable.

Religion to my mind has little to do with this sense of godness of which we are part and which is of us. Mysticism whether of Christians, Budhists, Moslems, Hindus or whatever come closest as a group to understanding this.

So far as ethics is concerned, that taught by all the great 'religious' reformers is the same. Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucious, Mohamed, Jeremiah and Jesus all taught the doctine of the golden mean. Ethics, however, is a facet of our godness but is not in any way a definition or it.

muddled perhaps but its 1 a.m. here.

 

[Pure]

reply to shadow method

SM ...Sir, you made the error that I pointed out before. You've separated atheism and agnosticism as if they were incompatible.
Atheism requires no faith.

Faith, by definition, is holding a belief without proof. Atheism goes to prove nothing, but it simply states that there is no deity.
Religions however requires faith in that it bases its ideas on explanations that were in place before the ones we have now which go into actual reasoning because we have the empirical data and substantiated claims.

Religion holds the burden of proof when it comes to proving anything. When a religious person tells me to prove that God doesn't exist, it's a false question because there has been no God shown to exist.

In essence, and I hate to bring up Dawkins but he's practically right here, all religious people are the same as me to every other religion other than their own. They have to show that their God is real before I can disprove it, which people have started to hate me for because I tend to go on 10 page rants disproving every single claim they could ever throw. (that is...until they get to "You just gotta have faith."...then it just falls off the deep end and becomes a test of patience until they stop being so conceeded.

I have no faith in anything other than myself, sir...atheism has nothing to say on faith other than it is wasted on the things that we wish could exist.

---

First, your definition of athesim is defective, or at least limited and somewhat incongruent with your other views. A better definition of At'm is "lack of a belief in God." this will entail living as if there is no God, but the 'belief' issue is sidelined. after all, i live as if there is no Zeus and no Leprechaun King. but if you ask about "does Zeus exist?" i simply say 'i have no beliefs on that issue."

Your claim that you have no faith in anyone other than yourself, is vague, and likely bogus (false). Don't you have a friend or a wife? Do you expect to get knifed in the back by one of them? Do you expect your wife or gf will love you tomorrow.

Have you done any long range planning, e.g. opened a savings account? Do you expect that tomorrow will be pretty much like today [in your area], i.e. no big disaster. If so, you have faith in that you go beyond the evidence. The proof is obvious, consider the state of mind and beliefs of John Kennedy or Gandhi the day before their assassination.

Do you ever open your front door and step out without looking down? i.e. expecting a level porch area or landing to be there, just beyond your doorsill? that is faith; it goes beyond the evidence.
---


NOTE: the above points apply against amicus naive materialism, as well. as all of us who've debated him know, his relation to 'evidence' on any of his points is entirely dubious. he holds any number of beliefs for which he has no evidence, e.g. that there is a plausible and workable morality based on rational self interest; that situations of competition [e.g. 'free market] produce the best outcomes. etc. amicus belief in the unnaturalness [and moral objectionability] of human homosexuality [practices] is another baseless belief of his.

 

[Shwenn]

I call myself an atheist.

You could call me an agnostic. Strictly speaking, that is what I am. I am just as strictly agnostic about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, though. Any bet about God, Santa Claus, FSM or the Tooth Fairy, my money will always go on "Does Not Exist".

There is no evidence that any of these things do exist. There is ample evidence that these things are exactly the sorts of stories that people concoct and manufacture out of thin air and have been concocting and manufacturing for thousands of years.

We have been getting better at making up these stories just as we have been getting better at every other manufacture we engage in. The current Gods are more sophisticated than the Gods from 3000 years ago. So are we. Stands to reason.

Even if they could show you the two molecules that "make" consciousness, they still haven't explained the miracle of awareness.

This is an argument from ignorance. The God of the gaps. It's no argument at all. We have only recently been able to explain gravity. So, does that mean that, 500 years ago it was a miracle performed by God and, only in the past hunred years did it become the deformation of space-time? No, it has always been the deformation of space-time and our knowledge of that had no bearing on it.

Also, we have a far better understanding of awareness than you probably think we do. Daniel Dennett is doing great work in that field and it is quite fascinating.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I call myself an atheist.


Also, we have a far better understanding of awareness than you probably think we do. Daniel Dennett is doing great work in that field and it is quite fascinating.

I know that, and I'm aware of his work, but you don't understand. There's an essential disconnect here between rationality and sensation. You can't explain a sensation. Science will never be able to "explain" the experience of being aware. That's a theological phenomenon that transcends explanations, even if it's just a product of atoms and molecules. You're never going to be able to say, "Here's the cause of consciousness." It's astonishing by its very nature and therefore miraculous. As long as we find the experience of consciousness miraculous, we're dealing with the sacred, and as long as we're dealing with the sacred, we're dealing with a liminal unknown, a hinge between being and not-being where anything's possible. That fulfills the criterion for God for me, for lack of a better word.

To me, I don't live in the universe with reason only, but with a mixture of reason and emotion, and that makes me respond to it with awe. That awe is the beginning of consciousness of God. I don't know what he is and I don't think he has much of an ethical agenda or think he gets involved in people's affairs much, but I trust that feeling. It's one of the most basic feelings I know. I believe in the sacred.

 

[Shwenn]

Science will never be able to "explain" the experience of being aware.

I completely disagree.

Is this an opinion you hold or do you know of some restriction, similar to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, that makes any such knowledge physically impossible?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I completely disagree.

Is this an opinion you hold or do you know of some restriction, similar to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, that makes any such knowledge physically impossible?

No. I'm talking about different kinds of knowledge. You can't "explain" the taste strawberry. You can explain how the stereoisomer differs from the molecule for caraway and how it fits into the olfactory receptors, but that still doesn't explain the subjective experience of vanilla. Science is helpless to explain the subjective experience. We'll never know whether my experience of vanilla is the same as yours.

Similarly, science can never explain the subjective experience of awareness because science doesn't deal with such things as subjective experience. Art does, and theology does. Science doesn't tell us what things "mean" subjectively, only how they behave objectively. Theology is entirely about subjective meaning. The two realms should never cross. When they do, there's trouble.

 

[amicus]

Welcome, Shwenn..don't let a couple of the 'usual suspects' of the forum deter your thinking with their innate negative approach to reason and rationality.

They value indeterminancy as it justifies their irrational behavior and lack of a moral or ethical foundation for their thoughts and actions, much easier to be intellectually irresponsible if you claim nohting is truth.

Mab tosses the word, 'emotion' around as if it were a beach ball, not for a moment ever considering the definition or meaning of the word, as if emotions, like their silly concepts of a God, were just floating in a vacuum.

Sometimes it is just ignorance and silliness. For example, the subjective 'taste' of each individual...ain't it strange that science has created artificial flavors, golly darn, that taste just like strawberries when the powder never came within a country mile of a real strawberry.

Further, a little chemical can tell the female body not to ovulate and the senses that lovely, wonderful tobacco smoke actually tastes like crap. Subjective my ass, the 'usual suspects' wouldn't recognize an objective truth if it bit them on the ass twice...

That said....again, welcome to the fray, gets interesting now and then.

Amicus...

 

[Shwenn]

Similarly, science can never explain the subjective experience of awareness because science doesn't deal with such things as subjective experience.

We know enough to say with something that approaches certainty that subjective experience is a deeply, deeply flawed mechanism.

You can opportunize on those flaws to manipulate people, cause them to believe ridiculous things and even make them bear witness to things that didn't really happen.

Ask any sufficiently honest magician. I'd recommend Derren Brown becasue that guy is just awesomeness incarnate.

Subjective experience is no bedrock and I certainly won't be basing any beliefs about the nature of the universe on it.

 

[rgraham666]

A recommended book on the human mind and our very, very limited knowledge of it is The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation.

According to this book we don't really know what awareness is. We don't really know what intelligence is. We don't really know what imagination or intuition or memory are. Every method that tries to explain these things come up against an 'explanatory gap', a spot where the processes we can observe tell us no more about our internal lives.

According to the author we'll probably never be able to cross this gap, and I tend to agree with him.

 

[Shwenn]

That said....again, welcome to the fray, gets interesting now and then.

Amicus...

Thank you. I certainly hope it does. I just left bdsmlibrary because the mod kept chastising me about the way I was debating. I still don't understand the problem. I wrote him a PM to ask and he responded with an email that easily could have been authored by an irate, pre-teen twit. Just all caps and exclamation marks as far as the eye can see.

I can already see this place is definitely more my style. I can't tell you how happy I am to have found it. I feel like I can breathe again.

 

[Stella_Omega]

A recommended book on the human mind and our very, very limited knowledge of it is The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation.

According to this book we don't really know what awareness is. We don't really know what intelligence is. We don't really know what imagination or intuition or memory are. Every method that tries to explain these things come up against an 'explanatory gap', a spot where the processes we can observe tell us no more about our internal lives.

According to the author we'll probably never be able to cross this gap, and I tend to agree with him.

This book would have more scientific authority if it were not published by an ax-grinding conservative company mostly involved in political books...

A lot has happened in the eight years since it was published, that tend to contradict the basic premise. No real scientist says "Never."

 

[sr71plt]

I'd agree that I don't think we could ever say science won't unlock the key to anything--but Stella would post instances of other people having said that here already.

 

[Shwenn]

A recommended book on the human mind and our very, very limited knowledge of it is The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation.

According to this book we don't really know what awareness is. We don't really know what intelligence is. We don't really know what imagination or intuition or memory are. Every method that tries to explain these things come up against an 'explanatory gap', a spot where the processes we can observe tell us no more about our internal lives.

According to the author we'll probably never be able to cross this gap, and I tend to agree with him.

This is Dennett talking about his problem with the way you guys are thinking about consciousness. That is his field of study. He is not, as the author of the book you've suggested, a journalist. He is one of the people who is actually trying to answer this particular question.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness.html

I would also point you to all of the AI research being done right now. Those are brilliant people who strongly disagree with you author's opinion and have dedicated their lives to a field which assumes you are wrong.

 

[rgraham666]

I have to laugh. Sorry.

I used to be a computer programmer. And as long as I've known computers there's always been people claiming "We can almost replicate human thought."

I'd always tell them, "How can you fake something when you don't know what it is?"

And here we are thirty years after I first got into computers and we're no closer, in my opinion, to have 'artificial intelligence' than we did then.

Anyway, the important question isn't "Can we create artificial intelligence?" The important question is "Should we?" We'd be kinda stupid if we're the first species to build the species that replaces us.

 

[Shwenn]

I have to laugh. Sorry.

You're not sorry. You're being patronizing on purpose. Let's not be coy.

I used to be a computer programmer. And as long as I've known computers there's always been people claiming "We can almost replicate human thought."

I don't even know of anybody making that claim, now. First, they say they are closer, but I've yet to hear 'close' from the people at the forefront. Nor do they want to replicate human thought. Once again, human thought isn't all that great. It's the best we've got but that's sort of like being the hottest waitress at Denny's.

I'd always tell them, "How can you fake something when you don't know what it is?"

Now you are begging the question. We've come full circle.

And here we are thirty years after I first got into computers and we're no closer, in my opinion, to have 'artificial intelligence' than we did then.

Another opinion of yours I disagree with. Who'd have thunk it?

Anyway, the important question isn't "Can we create artificial intelligence?" The important question is "Should we?" We'd be kinda stupid if we're the first species to build the species that replaces us.

If we would refrain from changing the subject and make some effort to stay on topic, the important question most is and remains, "Can we create artificial intelligence?"

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

A recommended book on the human mind and our very, very limited knowledge of it is The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation.

According to this book we don't really know what awareness is. We don't really know what intelligence is. We don't really know what imagination or intuition or memory are. Every method that tries to explain these things come up against an 'explanatory gap', a spot where the processes we can observe tell us no more about our internal lives.

According to the author we'll probably never be able to cross this gap, and I tend to agree with him.

Sounds like an empiricist....since they tend to be skeptical of knowledge acquired from any source but sense experience.

 

[past_perfect]

If we would refrain from changing the subject and make some effort to stay on topic, the important question most is and remains, "Can we create artificial intelligence?"

Probably, if you find a convenient definition of intelligence that fits what we can emulate with machines. If it is all about pattern recognition, yes. Is it though?

Same applies to Dennett - if you use his definition of consciousness (which is largely borrowed from clinical psychology), you can call your book "consciousness explained". However, maybe, just maybe, his definitions are a tad simplistic.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

We know enough to say with something that approaches certainty that subjective experience is a deeply, deeply flawed mechanism.

so is science... *shrug*

You can opportunize on those flaws to manipulate people, cause them to believe ridiculous things and even make them bear witness to things that didn't really happen.

yeah... and so can science.

Subjective experience is no bedrock.

Neither is science.

 

[Pure]

note to schwen

schSubjective experience is no bedrock and I certainly won't be basing any beliefs about the nature of the universe on it.


well, i hope you'll tell us the NON subjective experiences you base your beliefs on.

i know amicus has them: for example he experiences the objective fact that homosexual acts are disgusting and unnatural.

would yours be anything like that?